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DURHAM, N.H. - With the red planet closer to Earth than it has been in
nearly 60,000 years, the University of New Hampshire Observatory on the
Durham campus will hold a Mars viewing session Saturday, Aug. 23, 2003,
from 9 to 11 p.m. The public is invited and admission is free.

At its closest pass on Aug. 27, at 5:52 a.m., Mars will be less than 34.65
million miles away. While that might not seem "close," consider the fact
that just six months ago Mars was five times further away from Earth. The
last time we had a close encounter of the Mars kind, Neanderthals roamed
the Earth. That was in the year 57,617 B.C., and Mars was actually 25,000
miles nearer to Earth than it will be this year. It will be another 284
years, on Aug. 28, 2287, when Mars once again comes into the neighborhood.

"We'll be able to see surface features and the south polar cap of the red
planet," says John Gianforte of the Blue Sky Observatory. "Mars will be
brighter and larger in a telescope than it has in many, many years."

Gianforte notes that while the focus will be mainly on Mars, "Depending
on how
many people we have for our public session, we'll probably take a look at
some other favorites like,M13, M57 (the Ring Nebula), M27 (the Dumbell
Nebula) and M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy)."

While such alphanumerically designated celestial objects may not fire the
imagination the way Mars does, Gianforte describes M13, for example, as "a
great globular cluster in Hercules - a huge collection of more than
500,000 stars in spherical shape about 100 light-years across and some
28,000 light-years away." The university's 14-inch telescope will be able
to resolve individual stars in this stunning cluster.

For the Aug. 23 event, Gianforte adds, "Folks are encouraged to bring
their astronomical questions. When we have between 10 to 15 participants
we get some pretty interesting conversations going. All kinds of
astronomical questions will be fielded, such as how far away is a given
object or how did certain objects form? The sky's the limit."

The UNH observatory (a silo shaped building) is located near the tree line
in the soccer field on the west side of the UNH campus field adjacent to
the Field House and tennis courts on Main Street (Old Route 4). Parking
for the public sessions is at the tennis courts and at Moils House, which
is located directly across the street from the observatory.